Several policymakers and other experts have called China’s behavior, especially its activities in the South and East China Seas, ‘aggressive.’ This article compares China’s behavior with a suggested definition of ‘aggression’ based on the one enshrined in international law, and it finds that these experts’ use of the term ‘aggressive’ is inconsistent with this definition.

Operational AI systems need to obey both the law of the land and our values. We propose AI oversight systems (“AI Guardians”) as an approach to addressing this challenge, and to respond to the potential risks associated with increasingly autonomous AI systems

Much of contemporary analysis treats the public and private sectors as two rather separate and fundamentally different realms. Many see one of the two sectors as inherently virtuous and the other as corrupt. The paper shows, in considerable detail, that the two sectors are deeply intertwined. It follows that we need a rather different framework to study state and society.

The economic downturn (and rising inequality) has contributed to the rise of political alienation; the rise of a variety of right-wing expressions including xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism; and support for radical right-wing parties and politicians. What do these developments portend for the future?

Although some analysts have emphasized the importance of China’s becoming a “responsible stakeholder” in the international order, the United States has in effect blocked China’s full participation in a range of existing international institutions and attempted to undermine China’s efforts to create and lead new international institutions.

The growing number of ‘smart’ instruments, those equipped with AI, has raised concerns because these instruments make autonomous decisions; that is, they act beyond the guidelines provided them by programmers. Hence, the question the makers and users of smart instruments face is how to ensure that these instruments will not engage in unethical conduct.

People are motivated not only by a quest for satisfaction but also by trying to live up to their sense of what is moral. This sense cannot be reduced to a form of satisfaction, among other reasons because it often engenders pain and sacrifice rather than pleasure.

Building on the precedent of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) paradigm, and in keeping with a redefinition of sovereignty as a form of citizenship that entails responsibilities as well as rights, the international community should recognize a responsibility of states to curb transnational terrorism that emanates from within their borders.